Comedy: we all like it. It lightens the mood and cuts through tension in a story. However, some people define comedy differently. My definition is something that is conceived and developed for the purpose of being funny (which could be visual and/or auditory). So while flatulence might be seen as funny to some, it does not fall under the definition of comedy. In anime, there are a lot of forms of humor, but not an extreme amount in the way of comedy. This trend has developed over the years and I will break down what has developed over this time.
The first comedy anime I could find was a short film titled Osu from 1962. Directed by Osamu Tezuka, Osu focuses on a cat trying to pursue a relationship, but getting caught by a human almost every time. The ending features a dark ending, which can be seen as a case of dark humor. While the entire production is not all that great (however, do keep in mind that this is only three minutes long and preceded Tetsuwan Atom, otherwise known as Astro Boy, by a year). There is nothing much to say, but comedy was either a visual gag, innuendo (though having more to do with intimacy than anything sexual) or dark humour.
The humor while simple in nature does subvert some expectations in the end and provides some pointed commentary along with it.
Moving on a year to 1963 the first full length anime comedy is released. Titled Sennin Buraku, or Hermit Village in English, it had a runtime of about 10 minutes per episode spanning across 23 episodes. The sense of humor that this series caters to is quite weird and quite surreal, the first episode features someone inexplicably turn into a fish and back again among other things. It is an odd series, merely for the fact that it contains scenes of nudity as well, a rarity for television in Japan and an impossibility in the Western World. It is best only seen as a historical curiosity and its attempt at surreal humor, as a lot of its intentions at being humorous are shrouded in the language barrier and most probably some historical knowledge of China (where this place is set). Additionally episodes 12 and 19 are missing, meaning that the series would be impossible to complete.
1960s post-Sennin Buraku.
1970s
1980s
1990s
Also during the 1990s, a new form of comedy also appeared in the ecchi comedy. To clarify, in Japan, the word "ecchi" is the letter "h" voiced in Japanese, meaning that it is something slightly perverted, so sex jokes mainly. The West defines this term as any anime that contains nudity, whether in a humorous context or not.
Late 1990s-Early 2000s (pre-2002)
Despite comedy in anime being almost as old as anime itself, moe, that is the form of comedy that relies on a cuteness factor, is something relatively new, having first appeared in Azumanga Daioh, though the term can be traced back to earlier with a different meaning, which roughly translates to mean "the desire to protect" and stemmed from a commonality for having anime characters that appeared attractive (something that was first noted during the 1980s, but was not mainstream until thew 1990s). While there are several reasons as to why moe went from a failure outside of Azumanga Daioh to a success was a change in viewership and a large growth in hikikomori, or NEET (that is, Not in Education, Employment, or Training), population in Japan. While not all hikikomori watch anime (in fact, only a few do), those that do are often fanatical about it, particularly the cuteness factor in some anime, which made some romantic comedy anime popular during this time, but there was a problem in that most romantic comedy anime often achieved comedy by making fun of the lengths that one of the parties was going to. Lum from Urusei Yatsura, Yuusaku Godai from Maison Ikkoku, Kyousuke Kasuga from Kimagure Orange Road and Keitarou Urashima from Love Hina are all examples of character mad fun in such a way. The problem with this is that many hikikomori saw themselves as the characters being made fun of and was often their biggest complaint. The result was to replace this sort of comedy with a new kind, one that relied on the "moe" factor. This was not a sure fire success and it took several years for Azumanga Daioh to appear on television screens across Japan.
Speaking of Azumanga Daioh...
After Azumanga Daioh, moe did not exactly take off. There were several anime that attempted to copy Azumanga Daioh during 2002, but all were written off as failures. It was not until the mid-2000s (around 2006) did moe anime become the norm with the expansion of Kyoto Animation as a studio. Kyoto Animation had two production teams at that time, a drama team who worked in conjuction with Toei Animation and a moe team. The first moe team project to become popular was The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya. Based off of a popular light novel series (a type of adaptation first popularized by Boogiepop Phantom some six years earlier), The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya follows the story of Haruhi Suzumiya trying to meet supernatural beings. WHile the series is not pure moe, it features heavy moe elements and polarized many otakus because of that. Some liked it for multiple reasons (some said it was lighthearted and fun, while others compared it to Evangelion in depth), while others disliked it for its cheap style of writing and poor characters. I happen to find myself in the latter of two groups, however, this is an ever-shrinking minority in opinion, since most of us are just considered old and grumpy and only like a few anime, instead of all of them. Kyoto Animation's moe department continued to polarize otakus with their next two works Lucky Star (which first had an overwhelmingly bad reception from people, including myself) and K-On! (which had the exact same response as Lucky Star, mainly because it promised music and never delivered, which in the age of Beck: Mongolian Chop Squad and the upcoming Detroit Metal City, was simply unacceptable).
2000s post-Azumanga Daioh
This is when comedy took a downturn because of moe. Moe, quite simply, is an aspect of comedy that focuses on certain elements of characters by trying to make the all "cutesy". Frankly, whether it is trends like characters falling down or some weird snuff porn intended to be wholesome, it is all very stupid from the outset. Just there is almost nothing of value, no character growth, no plot progression, more often than not, the comedy misses the mark and it feels as if the entire series filler. For comparison, standard comedy "slice-of-life" anime, like Crayon Shin-Chan usually tried to contain something worthwhile, such as variegating the humor, incoroporating some plot progression, or having character development featured in at least some episodes.
Present